Russia’s Paper Tiger Roars Again

Russian President Medvedev holding a machine gun during his 2009 visit to Kaliningrad.

After U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped the Bush-era missile shield plan for Central Europe, Russia was widely expected to breathe a sigh of relief and drop its talk of placing Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, its western-most exclave sandwiched between NATO members Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea.

But the Russian defense minister has just said the missiles could be deployed if new threats emerge. The gain to U.S. and its allies — some of whom reacted enthusiastically to the death of the old missile shield plan — for making concessions to Russia remains unclear. So much for Obama’s appeasement of the Russians.

For the time being, the Iskander missile in the Russian exclave is just a paper tiger, as I called it some months ago. Russia did not take any real steps toward deployment in the past and it hasn’t now. But Russia has all the resources it needs to deploy the missiles in the future.

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